Ex-Fox News Editor Publishes Stormy Daniels Story He Spiked

Ken LaCorte, the former FoxNews.com editor who spiked the scoop about Stormy Daniels’ affair with Donald Trump has now published the article on his website with an explanation as to why he said it didn’t pass journalistic muster.

The report, and Fox News’ decision not to publish it, has come under scrutiny since The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer wrote about it as part of her bombshell article, “The Making of the Fox News White House.” The Fox reporter who got the scoop, Diana Falzone, is unable to comment as she is bound by the terms of a nondisclosure agreement. However Mayer notes that Falzone wrote her story in October, 2016, in the closing days of the presidential campaign. Mayer reported that Falzone was told by then-editor LaCorte, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.”

As I noted in a previous post, LaCorte wrote an editorial claiming Falzone’s story “wasn’t close to being publishable,” and that his decision was a “no-brainer.” He insisted, “I didn’t do it to help Trump and never said or implied otherwise. It was such an easy call that I never even informed my direct boss or anyone in management about it.” Mayer responded on MSNBC, saying that Falzone "“had quite a bit of reporting done and there are a lot of ways to check it.”

Now LaCorte has gone a step further and published Falzone's article on his website. It is described as “Trump story – V2” in the email sending it to him, presumably from Falzone. That suggests, obviously, that there was a V1. The date, October 18, also indicates that the article was submitted not long after the infamous Access Hollywood video was made public.

I’ll have to wait for professional editors and journalists to comment on the validity of LaCorte’s concerns. The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple sounded less than fully persuaded when he wrote, in the comments, “I suppose I could see not pulling the trigger on this draft.” He also asked if LaCorte had pushed for the improvements he thought needed. LaCorte replied that the improvements that had already been made “weren’t minor” and that “I recall an editor saying we were still reaching out for more info when the Stormy site went silent.” The implication was that her silence was due to her hush money contract.

I asked LaCorte if he could explain why the article said nothing about the hush money agreement. Mayer’s article said, “Falzone had also amassed e-mails between Daniels’s attorney and Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, detailing a proposed cash settlement, accompanied by a nondisclosure agreement. Falzone had even seen the contract.” That seems an important, if not crucial, part of the whole story.

I can't say that LaCorte doesn't make legitimate points in his decision not to run the story. The big question in my mind is whether Fox would have been so careful had the story been about Hillary Clinton and, as Wemple asked, what efforts had been made to improve the story. I find LaCorte's fuzzy recollection curious, given the potentially explosive nature of Falzone's story. On the other hand, he points out that much of the work was done below him so it is conceivable he does not recall all the details involved in the reporting.